A few Fridays a month I try to leave work a little early to pick up my daughter from school. We spend a little time together and then I bring her to gymnastics class, and catch up on work while she learns to climb rope or do backwards rolls.  But it’s the summer, gymnastics is over, and this past Friday I needed to get back to the office for a late afternoon meeting. So, I brought my daughter with me.

I work for an extremely family-friendly company and consider myself pretty freaking lucky. The benefits are great, we have a lot of flexibility, and there is this general sense of trying to help employees blend their work and family life a little bit easier. And it’s not uncommon to see a kid or two at the office if the parents need to get something done but for some reason don’t have childcare for that period of time. When I told my daughter we were going to mommy’s work, she seemed excited and I was relieved that I didn’t have to perform some insane juggling act to be a mom and get some work done.

Everything went well: My colleagues were very sweet with my daughter, who was conveniently well-behaved and managed to occupy herself without a peep for the duration of the half hour meeting I needed to attend. After an hour or so we left my office — a ring pop, bouncy ball and a stack of sticky notes in tow, all gifts to her from my nice colleagues — and went out for pizza. And as thankful as I was for having the freedom to bring my daughter to work, I am here to tell you that unless it’s an emergency, I hope to not do it again and don’t understand how other moms do it on a somewhat regular basis.

One of my constant struggles as a working mom is the nagging feeling that I’m not doing 100% as a mom and as a professional. Well, let me tell you, this feeling got a lot worse when my daughter was at work with me. Sure, I got through my meeting, but half the time I was distracted, worried that any minute now my kiddo was going to walk through the door and interrupt. And you know that working mom guilt? I’m pretty good at keeping it at bay most of the time, but boy, watching my daughter sit at my desk and draw with a shaprie on some old printouts brought it out in full force, as I thought about how much happier she would be on a playground.

Sure, this was just a one-time situation and like I said, mostly I’m just thankful that I work at a place where bringing your kids to work for a bit is a completely acceptable way to juggle work and family. But I have no idea how moms who bring their kids to work more often get any work done or why anyone would want to do this. An onsite daycare? I’ll be the first in line. But kids in the office? No thanks.

Have you ever brought your kids to work? Is this something you’d like your employer to encourage?